


Escobaran Legacy

by tuval



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-24
Updated: 2010-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuval/pseuds/tuval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Aral's regency, Gregor wonders: what if history had taken a different path?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escobaran Legacy

Gregor watched the Lord Regent glumly. Aral Vorkosigan made him feel like a backward child, even more than Cordelia did. She, at least, seemed to view him as her own backward child.

It wasn't that the regent his grandfather had appointed was a bad choice. Quite the reverse; Gregor had watched him handling his politics enough to know that Lord Vorkosigan was a master of the game and a man of iron integrity. But he played deep and expected Gregor to keep pace, even when Gregor was swept up in the press of the military academy. And it didn't help his studies when he had to get pulled out every week for a state dinner and behind the scenes wrangle when he had to listen and calmly endorse whatever the old fogey said.

It could have been worse; Grandfather Emperor Ezar could have appointed Piotr Vorkosigan as regent.

Now, he watched Aral Vorkosigan turn out the last of the Escobaran diplomats with great politeness and then close the door and turn, grey eyes measuring. Again. Still.

"So, sire, did you spot the hidden agenda tonight?" Testing, like that Major in personnel assignments. What was his name? Cecil, that was it. Nothing for it but to pass. _Beats failing._

"They want our Komarran fleets to take their routes again but they don't want our military escorts going along, of course." This time, at least, the question was easy. All the wrangling over tariff rates hid the underlying problem of justifiable Escobaran distrust, even fifteen years after the abortive attempt at invasion.

"And what do you think we should do about it?" the Lord Regent countered to his charge and future master.

"What you're already doing. They aren't laying out any compromises, and neither are we. It's going to be a few more rounds and probably years before we get ourselves anywhere close to an agreement. We need the groundwork laid so they understand our concerns and how much good the military escorts have already done our trade fleets." Gregor paused for a moment. "Their own space is well policed; I suppose if you want a diplomatic stick to beat them with, you could threaten to maintain picket forces on all the wormhole approaches to Escobar, outside their territorial space, and let the trade fleets drop off escorts on one side, then pick them up on the other. I'd only recommend suggesting it if you really wanted to watch the Escobaran military liason have a heart spasm."

Lord Vorkosigan actually barked a laugh at that. That brightened Gregor up. It was rare to hear from him, and the implicit approval of his understanding was encouraging. Finally.

The thought of Escobaran tensions and Barrayaran troops perched on their doorstep triggered a thought that had been percolating in the back of Gregor's mind since his military history instructor had detailed the disastrous invasion that had seen his own father's death. It was surely to the instructor's credit that he had presented Serg's own hawkish position so forthrightly with the Emperor sitting his classroom. The thought was oppressive, but Serg had been in Gregor's thoughts lately, and Lord Vorkosigan seemed to be in one of his more talkative moods. And the meeting had concluded earlier than expected. Perhaps he could get the man talking to him seriously.

"Lord Vorkosigan," Gregor said, letting his voice go more thoughtful, "you were in on the debates about whether to launch the invasion of Escobar, weren't you? You were against them, I think, even though the mirror shields were still secret." The Lord Regent let out a little grunt that Gregor elected to take as encouraging; it certainly didn't cut him off. "Why were you against it?"

"It was a strategist's nightmare, right from the beginning. A widely settled, rich planet, with a good military, allies and absolutely no provocation?" He shook his head. "God, what a horror. As you say, even before the mirror shields were factored in, it was never a good plan."

Gregor could see this, and see without being prompted the enormous gulf between the conquest of Komarr that the much younger Admiral Lord Aral Vorkosigan had effected a generation earlier. There was no way that would be missed in a Barrayaran military history course.

"Yes, but what if Beta Colony hadn't had some technological miracle to unveil? And if your wife hadn't spoiled the surprise? What do you think would actually have happened if the militarists had presented the whole wormhole nexus with their fait accompli, that was the whole basis of their political push? What would Barrayar look like today?" Unspoken, but thunderously loud, was the question of whether Aral Vorkosigan's hands would today be between those of Gregor or those of his late father, never-Emperor Serg Vorbarra.

The Lord Regent stared at Gregor for an unnervingly long time, but holding his own was one area in which Gregor was well equipped. His natural tendency towards quiet helped him, and all that varied galactic education did as well. It was made easier by the fact that he could tell there was no anger in his foster father, just appraisal. _As if he weren't judging me all day, every day._

"I think Barrayar would be a wilder place. The first thing that would have happened would have been the hailing of Crown Prince Serg and the war party on Barrayar. Then the Ministry of Political Education would have had him, and probably you and your mother and your grandfather assassinated. Or possibly confined under guard to the palace under threat of assassination from unknown galactic powers. Then they would have started attempting to cull the Council of Counts, but that would have led to a civil guerrilla war in short order, which the Council would have eventually won, but not before the confusion and social chaos led to a revolt on Komarr, the Betans coming in and freeing Escobar and the Cetagandans invading again, taking all three planets of the Empire, and not repeating the mistakes of the previous generation. You and I would be dead, along with, at a rough guess, about twenty million others and Cetaganda would be expanding through our sector."

Emperor Gregor Vorbarra felt the stiffness of his face as this litany rolled over him. It all fit distressingly well with what he had studied of his grandfather's last years of office, though Gregor thought that it had to be Lord Vorkosigan's worst case scenario. _Or most vivid nightmare._ For all that the description was direct and brief, the images it evoked to someone who had seen the glass crater that was once Vorkosigan Vashnoi were frighteningly immediate. They must be even more so for Aral, who had lived through that desperate time and even seen so much of it close up, but his voice was clinical, analytical.

"I suppose," said Gregor after a long moment, "that there are worse things than a failed invasion and a well constructed retreat."

"I suppose there are," Lord Vorkosigan agreed grimly, apparently considering Gregor's shoes. That was fine with Gregor. After a minute, however, the regent look up and flashed a lopsided smile.

"But I've real ghosts enough at my shoulders without inventing millions more, sire. Best not to be entrapped by the what ifs when politics and history crash upon you. Now, we are here, and here is a place from which I think Barrayar can move forward and grasp its future without being bitten by its past."

How did he deliver lines like that? It probably helped to be the senior statesman in the room; Gregor was fairly certain that he was a long way from being able to replicate the style. Instead, he simply nodded.

"Good." Lord Vorkosigan came to his side and clapped a hand on his shoulder, pulling him onward. "Now let's get some dinner."


End file.
